Mbostrom2's Blog

Cheshvan is the eighth of the twelve months on the Jewish “lunar” sacred calendar and second in the civil calendar. This year it begins at sundown November 1st and ends at sundown November 30  . The length of this month may be 29 or 30 days, this year it will have 29.

Cheshvan (khesh-vahn) is call the month of bool, a name that stems from the word for “flood”. The flood began on the 17^th of Cheshvan, and ended the following year on the 27^th of Cheshvan. On the following day, the 28^th of Cheshvan, Noah brought his sacrifice to God and God swore never again to bring a flood upon the earth to destroy all mankind, and then revealed the sign of His covenant with the world, the rainbow. For this reason, it is called “MarCheshvan” or ‘bitter Cheshvan’.

I Kings 6:38 calls this month Bul. “And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which [is] the eighth month” Bul means ‘increase, produce’ from the root meaning ‘rain, showers’, referring to this being a month of showers.

Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass of 1938, falls on the 15^th of Cheshvan. This commemorates when the Nazis youth gangs roamed through Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of business and homes and burning synagogues. The began the violence against the Jewish people in Germany. 75,000 businesses were destroyed, 26,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps for defending themselves & property. 91 Jews died and this began the Holocaust.

Letter- nun, (noon) the 14^th letter in the Aleph-Bet and has a numerical value of 50 (representing freedom and fullness of life). The pictograph of this letter is a fish and in ancient symbols it is seen as a fish darting through water. Nun is also seen as a sprout of vegetation. Both of these pictographs denote action and life. The word “please” is made up of the letter aleph & nun, aleph representing an ox and nun representing action. Asking please is an “sign of strength”.

• 3- In the year 1290, the last of the 16,000 Jews expelled by King Edward I left England. King Edward had banned usury and forced Jews over the age of seven to wear an identifying badge.
• 4-In 1483, Tomas de Torquemada was appointed as “Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition.” Jews of Spain had been forced to convert to Christianity, and the Inquisition was designed to uncover those who were continuing to practice their Judaism in secret (called Conversos or Marranos). Those who never confessed were burned at the stake; those who did confess were strangled first.  An estimated 32,000 were burned at the stake, and Torquemada’s name became a byword for cruelty and fanaticism in the service of religion. The order of expulsion was not officially voided by the government of Spain until 1968.
• 5– In 1975, Israel signed the Sinai disengagement pact with Egypt. The agreement called for Israel to withdraw from the Sinai passes captured in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
• 7- “Deliver Dew and Rain” prayers are added for rain in Israel
• 10-On this date in 2105 BC, Noah and family entered the Ark. It wasn’t until seven days later, however, that the intense rains began for 40 days and 40 nights. The delay was to allow a proper mourning period for Methuselah, the righteous grandfather of Noah who had just died at the age of 969 years, history’s oldest human being.
• 11– Jewish Mother’s Day commemorating the death of Rachel, wife of Jacob (Israel). Rachel’s Tomb, located by Bethlehem,  is regarded as Judaism third-holiest site.
• 12– Assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1955), not a national memorial day
• 12- In 1975, the United Nations passed a resolution declaring that “Zionism is racism.” Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Chaim Herzog, noted the irony of the vote coming (on the English calendar) exactly 37 years after Kristallnacht. The UN Secretary General at the time was Kurt Waldheim, later accused of war crimes while serving as a Nazi officer. The “Zionism is racism” canard is easily refuted by Israel’s open and democratic character — with Arabs serving in parliament, as well as Israelis of all skin colors. Upon the airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, William Safire noted: “For the first time in history, thousands of black people are being brought to a country — not in chains but in dignity, not as slaves but as citizens.” The UN General Assembly voted to repeal the resolution in 1991.
• 13– In 1938, Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers narrowly missed breaking Babe Ruth’s single-season home-run record of 60 home runs. Greenberg hit his 58th homer with two weeks remaining in the season, but several pitchers then intentionally walked him rather than give a Jewish man a chance to break Babe Ruth’s record. (He led the league that year with 119 walks.) Though Greenberg disputes this motive, he did acknowledge being subject to the most vicious ethnic taunting seen in the sport since the days of Jackie Robinson in 1947. Greenberg testified: “During my first year in the big leagues, the remarks from the stands and the opposing bench about my Jewish faith made life for me a living hell.” Greenberg grew up in an observant Jewish household, and did not play on Yom Kippur. In 1954, he became the first Jewish player to be elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown
• 14- In 1917, the British government gave final approval for the Balfour Declaration, calling for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in historic Israel
• 15- Kristallnacht, Night of the Broken Glass 1938. The Nazis destroyed almost all of the 1,600 synagogues  in Germany, as well as thousands of Jewish businesses and homes.
• 17– If no rain has fallen yet in the month, special prayers are prayed this day for rain
• 17– Great flood began 1656 (2105 BC) and Noah and his family were the only survivors
• 17– 960 BC Solomon’s Temple completed, but dedicated the following year in Tishri, the month of Isaac’s birth. This month  is believed to be the future dedication of the Third Temple
• 17– On this date in 1919, a New York Times headline declared “Einstein Theory Triumphs.” In 1952 he turned down an offer to become President of the State of Israel. Einstein has been called one of the most influential figures in history, and Time magazine named him “Person of the Century.” Einstein was Jewish and born in Germany.
• 18- In 1938, Nazi leader Hermann Goering announced that in order to “solve the problem of the Jews,” the African island of Madagascar was being considered as a giant ghetto for 4 million European Jews. The Madagascar Plan was cancelled due to a British blockade. One year later, it was decided that the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” would mean extermination.
• 18– 1990, Assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, Jewish leader, founder of the American Jewish Defense League and former Knesset member, was assassinated in New York by an Egyptian terrorist
• 22- The deportation of Budapest Jews was resumed on this date in 1944. During this time, 20,000 Budapest Jews were shot by the banks of the Danube by Hungarian forces. Another 70,000 Jews were forced on a death march to Austria, of which the majority were either shot or died of starvation and exposure. Raoul Wallenberg was involved in saving some of Hungary’s Jews. Out of 750,000 Jews that lived in Hungary before the war, only 30 percent survived.
• 23- In 164 BC, following the victory of the Maccabees, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was purified and rededicated. The stones of the Temple’s altar which had been defiled by the Greeks were removed and placed in a storage chamber on the Temple Mount. In Talmudic times, this day was celebrated as a holiday
• 23– 127 BC, according to Talmudic tradition, this was the date the stone of the altar was defiled by the Greeks and removed from the Holy Temple
• 27– 2104 BC, in the Jewish year 1657 the ‘earth dried’ (Genesis 8:14) after the great flood of Noah’s family 365 days on the Ark. On this day, God is said to have commanded Noah to “Come out of the ark” and repopulate, settle and civilize the earth.
• 30- In 1783, American forces recaptured New York City, clearing the way for the return of Jews who had been forced to flee when the British captured New York City in 1776. Jewish leaders were in danger due to their public support of the American Revolution. Perhaps the best-known was Haym Salomon, an immigrant from Poland, who worked as an undercover agent for George Washington. Salomon was arrested in 1778, accused of plotting to destroy British property in New York. Salomon was condemned to death for sabotage, but bribed his guard while awaiting execution, and escaped to Philadelphia. Salomon was an astute merchant and banker, and succeeded in accumulating a huge fortune which he used to finance the Revolution and later to save the new nation from financial collapse. When Salomon died at age 45 of tuberculosis, he was bankrupt and the U.S. government owed him $700,000 in unpaid loans.